Irrespective of the application being used by a user, if an instant message (IM) arrives from another user with whom the user is not presently engaged in an open IM communications session, the user's activity within the application is interrupted immediately. This interruption occurs without consideration of the task currently being performed by the user, the relative importance of that task to receipt of an incoming IM, or information reflecting a user's preference or reluctance for interruption. As such, control over the intended recipient's activity resides largely, if not exclusively, with the message sender.
For example, a user may be having an instant messaging conversation with a first individual in one user interface (UI) window. While the user is typing a message to the first individual during the course of this conversation, a second individual may send the user a new instant message. If the user does not already have an open instant messaging conversation with the second individual, a new instant message UI window is created and opened on the user's machine. When this new window is opened, it may take active focus away from other UI windows. If the user had been typing a message to the first individual when the new UI window takes focus, further typing by the user will appear in this new UI window rather than the intended UI window.